Greece Veering Off Target

Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou mused on a television program last night that his country might take longer than originally thought to pay back the €110 billion it borrowed from other euro-zone nations and the IMF.

Now why might he want to do that?

One answer comes in Greece’s monthly budget-execution reports, the most recent of which was released late last night. The upshot: Greece is very far from reaching the government-revenue targets built in to its deficit-reduction plan. Greece simply isn’t raking in enough cash. (On the plus side, at least revenue in September didn’t fall, as it did in August.)

Some figures, all from the “ordinary budget,” which is the vast bulk of it:

In the first nine months of this year, Greece took in €36.5 billion. In the same period last year, it took in €35.2 billion. So it’s running roughly €1.2 billion ahead of schedule. Problem is, it needs to end the year up by €6.6 billion if it’s to meet its original plan. That will require a big acceleration in the fourth quarter.